Ameltrudis

ON ST. AMELTRUDIS, VIRGIN,

AT JUMIÈGES IN THE TERRITORY OF ROUEN IN GAUL.

Perhaps in the seventh or eighth century.

Ameltrudis, virgin, at Jumièges in the territory of Rouen in Gaul (St.)

BY J. P.

Dudo, dean of Saint-Quentin, in book 2 On the Customs and Deeds of the Normans, under the year of Christ 876, records this in André Duchesne, page 75: Signs of ancient cult, In the year therefore eight hundred and seventy-six from the Lord's Incarnation the noble Rollo … came to Jumièges, and seeing the monastery [] of St. Peter adorned with the houses of monastic habitation, and reckoning the place to be holy, he forbore to stay there; but beyond the river he brought his ships to land at the chapel of St. Vedast, and set upon the altar of St. Vedast the body of a certain virgin named Hameltrudis, which he had carried with him; and to this chapel from the virgin's name an everlasting name clung: and that place is called by the inhabitants "at St. Ameltrudis's." Thus Dudo, whom I read to have flourished about the year 996. Similar things are related by William of Jumièges, called Calculus, a monk of Jumièges, in the History of the Normans, book 2, chapter 9, under the aforesaid year, page 227, adding however whence this sacred body had been carried off: The Danes, he says, with their leader Rollo … come to Jumièges, setting the body of the holy virgin Ameltruda, which they had carried off from Britain, upon the altar in the chapel of St. Vedast which is across the river. Which chapel until now retains that virgin's name — namely down to the times of the twelfth century, in which I read this author to be marked, namely the year 1120. There may also be consulted Matthew of Westminster in the Flowers of the Histories under the year 897. But her whom they call Ameltrudis, Thomas of Walsingham in the Hypodigma Neustriae*, page 415, calls Gertrude, and likewise the chapel that of St. Gertrude.

[2] Alford under the year 886 in his Annals, number 17, tries thus to explain the difficulties which he saw in this sacred deposit: and observations about the Saint's body What is to be said of this sacred deposit, I am at a loss. Because neither Gertrude nor Ameltrudis has a place in our calendars; nor do the Gallican calendars help me, where nevertheless an exact translation of holy bodies is recounted. I think therefore that Rollo and the Danes, plundering our monasteries after their manner, when they had found the bones of an English Virgin honored by the orthodox and adorned with gold and silver, and knew that they were of value among them, preserved them, thinking that they would be redeemed by the faithful with a vast sum of money. Being cheated of this hope, when they had made peace at Jumièges with Franco, prelate of Rouen, they left the holy Virgin's bones there; whose name, since the Danes did not know it, the French supplied by calling her either Gertrude or Hameltrudis.

[3] For the rest, that Rollo was wont to plunder the bodies of Saints from Britain the bishops of the Gauls seem to have understood, who at this very time, hearing what was being done in England by Rollo, withdrawing the bodies of the holy Britons Maglorius, Samson, and Machutus from his fury, translated them to Paris, the Gallican Martyrology being witness, where on the XXIV day of October this is found: His body (namely Maglorius's) grew famous by many prodigies in the sepulcher. Which afterward Salvator, bishop of Aleth, …, when Rollo, leader of the Danes, was invading Britain on this side of the sea with hostile inroad and barbarous assault, lest it should be profaned by the army of a faithless nation, together with the precious remains of the holy Samson and Machutus (otherwise Maclovius) betimes withdrew, and to Paris

of the Parisians, as to the citadel of the kingdom and the safest guardianship of religion, he carried it. Concerning what has already been said I observe the following. First. The monastery of St. Peter of Jumièges is of the Order of St. Benedict, which Mabillon mentions in various places of his Annals. Hadrian Valois in the Notitia Galliarum, page 224, says: It is a place in the district of Rouen on the bank of the river Seine, which, when Filibert had asked and obtained it from Clovis the younger, king of the Franks, he built there by his permission a noble monastery of eight hundred monks, comprising five buildings, partly basilicas, partly oratories, and girt with square and turreted walls. It is described at greater length by the said Mabillon in volume 1 of the Annals under the year 655, page 434. Secondly. Rollo, first duke of Normandy, called Robert at baptism, is very well known in the ninth century for the acquiring of Normandy.

[4] translated. Thirdly. St. Maglorius the bishop is found in the Roman Martyrology on the XXIV of October, St. Machutus the bishop on the XV of November: of whom more elsewhere. But Samson the bishop is among us on the XXVIII day of July, where an Appendix may be seen in which that Saint's relics and their translations are treated. And indeed what we have judged about his sacred remains carried to Paris, as Saussay would have it, the reader will find there on page 592. But about the others mentioned above, inquiry may be made on the days already set down. Salvator, bishop of Aleth, named before, is said by Albert Le Grand of Morlaix in his Armorican Britain, page 198, to have been consecrated in the year 873 and to have died in 915. Finally, the Saint of whom we have treated is announced on this XXX day of August by Arthur in his Gynaeceum, on which day I have not yet found her inscribed in the older sacred Calendars. And the aforesaid place (at St. Amaltruda's), he says, is by a corrupted vernacular called Emendreville. And his announcement runs thus: In the territory of Rouen, of Saint Ameltruda, glorious virgin. That she departed this life long before the year 876, in which the translation of her body is written to have taken place, one may conjecture from that very translation; but since I am ignorant when and how long before it she died, perhaps this happened in the seventh or eighth century.

*. Jumièges.